FRANKFORT, Ky. (4/13/13) – House Republican Floor Leader Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, is questioning an announcement earlier this week by Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday that the first 57 school districts to raise their dropout age will receive $10,000 each in ‘planning grants.’

Today Representative Hoover sent a letter to Governor Steve Beshear expressing concerns about the use of those funds when many local districts are cutting positions and can’t afford to provide essential items to students.

“I find it disturbing the Commissioner of the Department of Education is offering more than $500,000 in public education funds to advance this agenda while tens of thousands of children in Kentucky are desperately in need of textbooks,” Rep. Hoover wrote to the Governor. “My questions are this, where is the money coming from? If KDE has, all the sudden, $500,000 dollars for this graduation initiative, how much other money is ‘laying around’ over there? If there is $500,000, all of a sudden, why hasn’t the money been used previously for essential expenditures and unmet needs such as textbooks?”

“(Ten) years from now it will not matter that we have raised the minimum age for high school dropouts if we continue down this path of spending money which without a doubt no member of the legislature or the public was told was available,” Hoover further wrote.

Rep. Hoover’s letter was delivered to the Governor’s office on Friday.